An audio-visual performance using sounds that are generated by different light bulbs and actuating electric devices, appearing at auxxx for the second time! The use of different controllers such as switches, dimmers, relays, flashers and various others leads to changes in the light and the current flow. This is made audible by a range of microphones and pick-ups. In addition, fine mechanical sounds occurring inside the light controllers are amplified and integrated into the music. The changes in the light intensity, the incandescence of the filaments and the rhythmic variety of the flickering and pulsing lights is directly transformed into a comprehensive and microcosmic electro-acoustic world of sound.

ARTIST INFO

ANDRÉ VIDA

André Vida is a saxophonist, lyricist and composer. In 1995 Vida moved to NYC and cofounded the CTIA with Brandon Evans. His musical language is informed by an awareness of the human body and its limits. In a collaboration with Anri Sala at The Serpentine Gallery, Vida was scheduled to perform over 400 concerts over the course of 51 days from October 1 to November 20 2011. He has collaborated with Anthony Braxton, Jamie Lidell, MV & EE, Anaïs Croze, Kevin Blechdom, Oni Ayhun, Tim Exile, Anri Sala, James Tenney, David Rosenboom, Sonny Simmons, Cecil Taylor, Lee Ranaldo, Heatsick, Jim O'Rourke, Dean Roberts, Tony Buck, Hildur Gudnadottir, Jimmy Edgar, Chilly Gonzales, Mocky, Tyshawn Sorey, Susie Ibarra, Guillermo E. Brown and many others.

Michael Vorfeld, musician and visual artist, based in Berlin, plays percussion and self designed stringed instruments and realises electro-acoustic sound pieces. He works in the field of experimental, improvised music and sound art and is often involved in site-specific art projects. He realises installations and performances with light, works with photography and film. Besides his solo activities he is a member of various ensembles and collaborates with artists from different art forms. His list of activities includes numerous concerts, performances and exhibitions in Europe, America, Asia and Australia.

Judy Dunaway performs avant-garde compositions and free improvisations on amplified latex balloons played as musical instruments. She is known internationally as a “virtuoso of the balloon.” She plays a variety of shapes and sizes of balloon instruments, each with it’s own special qualities, pushing the extremes of both pitch range and artistic limits.
Her giant balloon pulsates into the depths of the subaudio, her blown balloon wails in a high soprano and her large rubbed “tenor” balloon apparently gives Jimmy Hendrix’s guitar a run for the money. Her abstract music and sounds are difficult to equate with other forms, depending upon the perception of the individual like the images seen in fire or clouds. She has presented her works for balloons at many major venues throughout North America and Europe, including the Academy of Media Arts (Cologne), GEIGER Festival (Sweden), the Guelph Jazz Festival (Canada), Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors (New York), Podewil (Berlin), Roy and Edna Disney Center (Los Angeles) and ZKM (Karlsruhe). She has also performed on balloons with many outstanding musicians including Roscoe Mitchell, Jennifer Walshe, John Hollenbeck, Yasunao Tone, and the FLUX Quartet. CDs of her works for balloons have been released on the CRI (Composers Recordings Inc) and Innova labels, among others.

Bryan Eubanks is a musician working with the soprano saxophone, electronics of his own design, and computer music. He composes electronic and acoustic works for small ensembles, solo instruments, and custom generative software; improvises in collaboration; and, is developing sound installations exploring acoustic holography. Growing up in the desert region of eastern Washington State, he was trained in analog photography before becoming musically active in Portland, Oregon in the late 1990's. Initially, his work was centered around acoustic improvisation, but quickly expanded to include electronics and a more varied approach to composition and the practice of making music. He has lived in, and been a part of the music communities of, Portland and New York City, and is currently based in Berlin. In collaboration with Jean Paul Jenkins and Joseph Foster, he founded and operated the record label Rasbliutto from 2001 to 2010. In 2012, he co-founded, along with Catherine Lamb and Andrew Lafkas, Sacred Realism, a platform for the independent distribution of their work. Eubanks is, for the most part, an autodidact, with no formal musical training, but in 2012 he received an MFA from the Milton Avery School of the Arts at Bard College.

Xavier Lopez has developed an autodidact approach to laptop playing, with attention to the minimal and synthetic: sine waves, white noise, feedback, oscillators. His work as a sound artist is inspired by a broad range of aesthetics as well as other issues (perception, surroundings, survival, theory). During the last couple of years he has performed in France, Spain, The Netherlands, Germany, Austria, Mexico and in the United States. He co-organized the trashvortex concert series in Paris, focusing on EAI, noise, improv and free-jazz.

For her Solo for Voice and Electronics Alessandra Eramo creates a musique concrète collage to move beyond the sound in the more visceral layers of poetic expression. With her distinctive extended vocal techniques and sound poetry eruptions she mixes field recordings and a dynamic use of theremin, tape recorders and contact microphones.

"This is evocative, lyrical art, created by a very gifted miniaturist“
Ed Pinsent, The Sound Projector

"The illegitimate child of the early Moondog“
Curt Cuisine, Skug Magazine

Liz Allbee plays trumpet, as well as conch, electronics and voice. Her work spans many genres, primarily encompassing improvisation, electronic composition, instrument building, noise, weird pop, and experimental rock. She is interested in proto-lingualism and the gestures, loops, and tics of communication, and in re-configuring the tools and the hands that make them.

Elena Margarita Kakaliagou is a greek-austrian french horn player and performer, currently based in Berlin. Starting out with piano lessons, she moved on to the French horn at the age of 18. After completing her studies in Athens/GR with Vangelis Skouras, she moved on to KUG-Graz/AT to continue her education under the teaching of Hector McDonald. Instructed by Erja Joukamo-Ampuja, Elena obtained her Master’s degree from Sibelius Academy/FI in 2010 /French horn and chamber music. During her career, Elena has received scholarships from Klangforum, Impuls and Ensemble Modern with teachers like Mike Svoboda and Bill Formann. Elena’s field of specialization is free improvised and contemporary music, next to classic chamber music. She has performed premiers and classical repertoire both as a soloist and as a member of Ensembles (Ensemble Linea, Unitedberlin, KNM Berlin) in Festivals like Ultraschall Berlin/DE, Maerz Music/DE, Randspiele/DE, Musica Nova/FI, Lá-bas/FI, Musica/FR, Warsaw Autumn/PL, New Adits/AT ao. She has also worked with individual artists: Riikka Innanen, Samuel Stoll, James Andean, Ingrid Schmoliner, Katharina Klement, Catherine Christer Hennix, Robin Hayward, Simon Steen-Andersen, Thomas Noll, to name but a few. Elena is the co-founder of the Helsinki-based ‘Rank Ensemble’, the Austrian trio ‘PARA’, (“PARA-ligo” cd, creativesources 2012) the performance groups ‘Lúiss’ and ‘Continuous Variation’, as well as the classical wind quintet ‘AEOLIDES’, based in Berlin.

Omar Dewachi is an Iraqi/Canadian academic and musician based in Beirut, Lebanon. Trained in classical Iraqi oud and Iraqi Maqam music, Dewachi has performed in numerous concerts and festivals in Europe, North America and the Middle East. In addition to Iraqi and Arabic music, he dwells in a variety of music improvisational genres including free-improv Jazz and experimental music. His recent album is Towers Open Fire with City of Salt, a collaborative trio that re-frames tradition in a contemporary improvised context.

Iraqi-American trumpeter, santur player, vocalist and composer Amir ElSaffar has distinguished himself with a mastery of disparate musical styles and a singular approach to combining aspects of Middle Eastern music with American jazz, extending the boundaries of each tradition. A skilled jazz trumpeter with a classical background, ElSaffar has created new techniques to play microtones and ornaments that are idiomatic to Arabic music but are not typically heard on the trumpet.Additionally, he is an acknowledged performer of the classical Iraqi maqam tradition, and performs actively in the US, Europe and the Middle East as a vocalist and santur player.

The tuba player and composer Robin Hayward, born in Brighton, England in 1969, has been based in Berlin since 1998. He has introduced revolutionary playing techniques to brass instruments, initially through the discovery of the 'noise-valve', and later through the development of the first fully microtonal tuba in 2009. His approach to the tuba has been documented in the solo CDs Valve Division, States of Rushing and Nouveau Saxhorn Nouveau Basse, along with various collaborative releases. In 2005 he founded the ensemble Zinc & Copper Works to explore brass chamber music from an experimental music perspective. For this concert he will present his recently developed Just Intonation interface - the Hayward Tuning Vine.

Pierre Alexandre Tremblay is a composer and a performer on bass guitar and sound processing devices, in solo and within the groups ars circa musicæ (Paris, France), de type inconnu (Montréal, Québec), and Splice (London, UK). He is a member of the London-based collective Loop. His music is released by Empreintes DIGITALes and Ora. He formally studied composition with Michel Tétreault, Marcelle Deschênes, and Jonty Harrison, bass guitar with Jean-Guy Larin, Sylvain Bolduc, and Michel Donato, analysis with Michel Longtin and Stéphane Roy, studio technique with Francis Dhomont, Robert Normandeau, and Jean Piché. Pierre Alexandre is Professor in Composition and Improvisation at the University of Huddersfield (England, UK) where he also is Director of the Electronic Music Studios. He previously worked in popular music as producer and bassist, and is interested in videomusic and coding.

Zinc & Copper Works was founded by Robin Hayward in 2005. Alongside its musical virtuosity this group is distinguished by innovative and pioneering research within the area of experimental music. Using distorted embouchure and experimental valve techniques, the instruments may be transformed into acoustic noise generators. Half-valve and muting techniques allow for an acoustic filtering of the tone, opening up a wide colour spectrum. The instruments may be tuned microtonally and combined with new technology. For example, the attachment of sensors to the valves allows the instrumental mechanism to interact with current computer technology. In 2009 the ensemble received funding from the Kulturverwaltung des Landes Berlin, which, together with support from the instrument makers B&S, made it possible to convert the conventional instruments into a specifically designed microtonal horn and microtonal tuba. In the time of Giovanni Gabrieli, long before modern valved brass instruments were invented, the brass ensemble had equal standing to other chamber music ensembles. By researching alternative approaches towards playing, Zinc & Copper Works is exploring the potential of the medium in the 21st century.

"two men with sinister-looking suitcases full of mysterious knobs and dials meet the tweed suited man-with-the-golden-horn one thursday night in a cellar of a tiny East Berlin cinema... what could possibly happen next??? you will have to come to find out..."

"One of the best pairing of personalities that one could imagine, Hirsch and Kazuhisa show all their magnificent talent in a flawless live recording. The American vocalist is her usual self, her interpretation ranging from one genre to another with a fantasy and an intelligence that are rare to see nowadays; her technical ability is well known, so is the sense of humour that she always puts in front of us, a trademark for which Shelley is recognizable at the first note she hits. Uchihashi Kazuhisa complements her in stunningly perfect fashion, accompanying and counterpointing through a fresh sense of technical abandon that never cancels the simple beauty of the "gesture of playing". His use of delays and effects to reach different timbral zones is a perfect balance to Shelley's crazy yet lucid evolutions. And when they try to subvert "In a sentimental mood" with their cross between anarchy and loving homage, well - I think that the circle is closed. This is a masterpiece" (review of CD: Duets. Innocent, ICR-008, 2002)

Tomomi Adachi is a performer/composer, sound poet, instrument builder and visual artist. Known for his versatile style, he has performed his own voice and electronics pieces, site-specific compositions, improvised music and contemporary music in all over the world including Tate Modern, Maerzmusik, Centre Pompidou, Poesiefestival Berlin, Merkin Hall, Tempelhof Airfield, STEIM and Walker Art Center working with Jaap Blonk, Nicolas Collins, TAKAHASHI Yuji, Annette Krebs, SAKATA Akira, Jennifer Walshe, ICHIYANAGI Toshi and OTOMO Yoshihide. He has composed for untrained vocal groups and professional contemporary music ensembles, been using even brainwave, artificial satellite and paranormal phenomenas. He directed Japanese premiere of John Cage's "Europera5" in 2007. CDs include the solo album from Tzadik, Omegapoint and naya records. He was a guest of the Artists-in-Berlin Program of the DAAD for 2012.

Frank Gratkowski has been working as a soloist in various international formations (Grubenklang Orchester, Apartment House, Musikfabrik NRW, BikBentBraam, Zeitkratzer, WDR Orchestra, WDR Big band, Münchener Kammerorchester, etc.). Since 1990 he has been giving solo performances throughout Europe, Canada and USA. With his first solo program "Artikulationen", he was a 1991 prizewinner in the Musik Kreativ contest. Since 1992 he has been working in a duo with the pianist Georg Graewe. which is often extended through the participation of different additional musicians, such as drummer Paul Lovens and bassist John Lindberg. Gratkowski has played on nearly every German and on numerous international Jazz and New Music Festivals including Vancouver, Toronto, Chicago, New York, Seattle, Quebec, Les Mans, Muelhuus, Groeningen, Nickelsdorf, Barcelona, Lithuania, Warsaw, Zagreb, Prague, Bratislava, Sofia, Bucharest, Odessa, Belgrad, Madrid, Barcelona, Göteborg, Huddersfield, London and Roma. He has been teaching saxophone, ensemble and composition at the Cologne, and Arnhem Conservatory of Music and is giving workshops all around the world. Furthermore he has performed with Robert Dick, Phil Wachsmann, Radu Malfatti, Herb Robertson, Marcio Mattos, Eugenio Colombo, Peter Kowald, Ray Anderson, Michael Moore, Ken Vandermark, Greg Osby, Kenny Wheeler, Louis Sclavis, John Betsch, Jane Ira Bloom, Connie and Hannes Bauer, Xu Fengxia, James Newton, Muhal Richard Abrams, John Lindberg, Michael Formaneck, Ernst Reijseger, Fred van Hove, Theo Jörgensmann, Phil Minton, Peter Brötzmann, Mark Dresser, Mark Feldman, Hamid Drake, Michiel Braam, Han Bennink, Zeena Parkins, Mal Waldron, Misha Mengelberg, Beat Furrer a.m.o. His discography count's more than 30 CDs under his own name and many others as sideman.

Meinrad Kneer operates on the borders of jazz, improvised, ethnic and contemporary music. After his school years and civil service he studied Biology at the University of Tübingen. From 1995 till 1999 he studied music and double bass in the Netherlands and ever-since he is present and active in the Dutch music scene and abroad. Next to Amsterdam, he established in 2010 a second home base in Berlin/ Germany, therefore he is present in both cities/ regions and their vivid music scenes.

Korhan Erel is a computer musician, improviser and sound designer based in Berlin. He treats the computer as an instrument that can co-exist with conventional instruments in free improvisation. He makes frequent use of field recordings or found sounds in his instrument designs. His music covers free improvisation, conceptual sound performances as well as structured and composed pieces, the latter mainly performed at art events and museums in Europe. He is a founding member of Islak Köpek, Turkey’s pioneering free improvisation group. He performs solo, duo and group concerts in Turkey and Europe. Korhan also does sound design and music for theater, video and dance. His collaboration 'The Threshold' with Sydney-based video artist Fabian Astore has won the Blake Prize in Australia in 2012. Korhan has done three residencies at STEIM in Amsterdam on sensors and instrument design. He was a guest composer at the Electronic Music Studios in Stockholm in 2011. He has many CD releases in Turkey, the Netherlands, Portugal and Greece as well as several internet releases.

Sound Art Legend HELMUT LEMKE makes a rare visit to Berlin with his even rarer recently dusted-off self built multi cassette tape player machine. Presented in sonic conversation with his old friend and collaborator, MICHAEL VORFELD's percussion and AUXXX co-curator RICHARD SCOTT's eccentric electronicisms. What Lemke does and why he uses technology that is old, analogue and in itself extremely noisy he described in an interview he gave with W. Montgomery in The WIRE in 1998:

"Lemke feels that improvised music today still offers the possibilities both for sonic exploration and rebellion against technique. But apart from a questioning of musicanly values, he’s also unusual among contemporary experimental musicians for his lack of interest in using high technology in his own work. Feeding off the aesthetics of Captain Beefheart, Peter Broetzman and Art Brut pioneer Jean Dubuffet, he disparages the constraints of refinement."

"I like to see the human factor in the sound, as much in the presentation as in the making of music."

"It’s also about risk and the possibility of failure. People can see what I’m actually doing when I use my big tape machine set-up. In a way it’s an old fashioned sampler – I use a big box with eight tape recorders and I have 200 tapes recorded all over the world. I never know exactly where on a tape a sound is."

Transparency is an issue here, as is communication with the audience, the listener AND the viewer. It’s vital for Lemke that people can see what’s done. He isolates three factors as central to his approach: firstly using whatever sound- making materials he wishes, secondly working outside conventional spaces and third sharing his art in ways that includes and makes his art accessible. His solo recordings (released on his edition el C. label and the Nur/Nicht/Nur imprint) is extraordinarily varied, ranging from versions of English nursery rhymes to contorted guitar workouts and a projected blend of past environmental recordings. But he always brings an energetic roughness to a seemingly rarefied sphere of endeavour.

“Art to me is about communication – questioning and accepting that your processes in art are just one possible answer which lead to more questions.”

The duo have been performing together for more than ten years, and have released two recordings, “these things seem natural to us,” on the Evander label + “start this before dawn touches the skyscrapers,” on Edgetone.

"mysterious, complexly textured improvisations that sometimes take shape as the aural equivalent of abstract expressionist paintings, whether the ethereal, mystical canvasses of Mark Rothko or the jittery, splatter techniques of Jackson Pollock"
(Derk Richardson, KPFA radio host and music critic)

Originally from New York, Nicolas Collins lived in Amsterdam and Berlin in the 1990s before joining the Department of Sound at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. An early adopter of microcomputers for live performance, Collins also makes use of electronic circuitry, conventional acoustic instruments, and hybrid electro-acoustic instruments. He is editor-in-chief of the Leonardo Music Journal, and his book, Handmade Electronic Music – The Art of Hardware Hacking (Routledge), has influenced emerging electronic music worldwide. Collins has the dubious distinction of having played at both CBGB and the Concertgebouw.

Trumpet, electronics, composition; studied piano in Arnhem (NL) from 1988 - 89, then piano and trumpet (with Malte Burba) at the Musikhochschule, Cologne from 1989 - 94. Moved to Berlin in 1994. He has worked together with numerous internationally respected figures in the fields of "Improvised Music", "Composed Contemporary Music", "Jazz" and "Electronic Music". He has developed a unique style of trumpet playing based in part on unusual, often self-invented techniques. He has toured in Europe, North and South America, Australia, Japan and Asia and appeared on numerous CD and record releases.

Sukandar Kartadinata crafts modern musical instruments made from code and microchips rather than wood or brass. His designs are usually custom-made depending on the specific needs of individual musicians or media artists. Kartadinata studied computer science at FH Karlsruhe, but developed most of his skills while working at the music technology institutions ZKM, STEIM, and CNMAT, as well as the Topophonien project. From the latter he derived his interest in spatialization, applied for example in the Neo-Bechstein duo or more recently to his amplified guitar case.
His main focus though is on interfacing between real and virtual domains, typically via sensors and associated technology. Where projects allow he strives for embedded solutions, to imbue his instruments with a stronger identity untethered from the typical tangle of assorted gear. In his musical practice Kartadinata combines the above with his electric guitar playing where the emphasis is on improvisation and extended playing techniques, being rooted in the Berlin echtzeitmusik community. His guitar is a rare case where he actually complements modern technology with wood and brass.

The first presentation of a new audio-visual project - Inconsolable Ghost - produced by AUXXX and Denovali Records will take place at OT301 on Thursday 30 January featuring local guitar heroes Alfredo Genovesi and Raphael Vanoli, plus the great Japanese experimental film maker Makino Takashi, known for his work with Jim O Rourke and Sonic Youth.

Encountering one another’s music while performing in the large ensemble ‘Call them Improvisers’, performance at Sonic Arts Research Centre, Belfast (November 2010), directed by Evan Parker, Paul Stapleton and Simon Rose found an immediate musical affinity. Since then they have performed as a duo in Germany and the UK. The recently released and well received: ‘Fauna’ was recorded by Elmar Susse on 22nd September 2011 in Hoffnungskirche (church) in Pankow, Berlin. In the duet Paul Stapleton’s self designed instrument, the BoSS Bonsai Sound Sculpture, (BoSS, 2010) combines with Simon Rose’s circular breathed baritone/alto, multiphonics and harmonic textures, to explore in real-time interaction. The method of exploration commits to a free improvisation approach: the music is composed at the point of performance.

This is the best kind of improvised music… a very remarkable duet
Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg

Elena Margarita Kakaliagou is a greek-austrian french horn player and performer, currently based in Berlin. Starting out with piano lessons, she moved on to the French horn at the age of 18. After completing her studies in Athens/GR with Vangelis Skouras, she moved on to KUG-Graz/AT to continue her education under the teaching of Hector McDonald. Instructed by Erja Joukamo-Ampuja, Elena obtained her Master’s degree from Sibelius Academy/FI in 2010 /French horn and chamber music. During her career, Elena has received scholarships from Klangforum, Impuls and Ensemble Modern with teachers like Mike Svoboda and Bill Formann. Elena’s field of specialization is free improvised and contemporary music, next to classic chamber music. She has performed premiers and classical repertoire both as a soloist and as a member of Ensembles (Ensemble Linea, Unitedberlin, KNM Berlin) in Festivals like Ultraschall Berlin/DE, Maerz Music/DE, Randspiele/DE, Musica Nova/FI, Lá-bas/FI, Musica/FR, Warsaw Autumn/PL, New Adits/AT ao. She has also worked with individual artists: Riikka Innanen, Samuel Stoll, James Andean, Ingrid Schmoliner, Katharina Klement, Catherine Christer Hennix, Robin Hayward, Simon Steen-Andersen, Thomas Noll, to name but a few. Elena is the co-founder of the Helsinki-based ‘Rank Ensemble’, the Austrian trio ‘PARA’, (“PARA-ligo” cd, creativesources 2012) the performance groups ‘Lúiss’ and ‘Continuous Variation’, as well as the classical wind quintet ‘AEOLIDES’, based in Berlin.

Margarita Kourtparasidou was born in 1981 in Greece. Supported by musical parents in Thessaloniki, Maria-Margarita Kourtparasidou began playing the piano at the age of six, before later taking up percussion. She studied at the Thessaloniki State Conservatoire under Prof. Vassiliadis till 2000. In January 2005, she completed her Performance Diploma at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold (Germany) under Prof. Peter Prommel and in February 2006 she finished the Chamber Music Diploma at the same school. In May 2007 she completed the Master Degree at the Conservatorium of Amsterdam with specialisation in chamber music. In 1999 she wins the Panhellenic Percussion Competition and also she was offered a grant to study at the Berklee School of Music in Boston. In Germany she studies with a “Gesellschaft der Freunde und Foerderer of the Hochschule für Musik Detmold E.V.” Scholarship and in Amsterdam she wins a subsidy from the Dutch Ministry of Culture. Recently she managed to come through the semi-finals of the Gaudeamus Competition for Interpreters. Maria-Margarita Kourtparasidou has gained work experience at the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie (Germany), Dutch Radio Chamber Orchestra, New Music Ensemble, Asko Ensemble and many others. She was Solo-Timpanist at the Thessaloniki State Symphony Orchestra, member of the Nederlands Wind Ensemble and the DissonART Ensemble and has founded the Red Chicken Soup Duo with Guido De Flaviis (saxophone). She has toured in Europe, America and Asia. She is living in Berlin since 2012 and she is interested in free improvisation, performance and live-electronics.

Paul Stapleton is a sound artist, improviser and writer originally from Southern California, currently based in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Paul designs and performs with a variety of modular metallic sound sculptures, custom made electronics, found objects and electric guitars in locations ranging from experimental music clubs in Berlin to remote beaches on Vancouver Island. He is involved in a diverse range of artistic collaborations including: improvisation duos with saxophonist Simon Rose & percussionist Michael Speers, networked installation design and performance with Tom Davis, Eric Lyon's Noise Quartet, and the co-direction of QUBe experimental music ensemble with Steve Davis. Since 2007, Paul has been lecturing at the Sonic Arts Research Centre (Queen’s University Belfast), where he teaches and supervises MA & PhD research in performance technologies, interaction design and site-specific art.

The first presentation of a new audio-visual project - Inconsolable Ghost - produced by AUXXX and Denovali Records will take place at OT301 on Thursday 30 January featuring local guitar heroes Alfredo Genovesi and Raphael Vanoli, plus the great Japanese experimental film maker Makino Takashi, known for his work with Jim O Rourke and Sonic Youth.